“It is the nature of men to be bound by the benefits they confer as much as by those they receive.”
Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 10; translated by W. K. Marriot
Original
La natura degli uomini è, così obligarsi per li beneficii che essi fanno, come per quelli che essi ricevono.
The Prince (1513)
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Niccolo Machiavelli 130
Italian politician, Writer and Author 1469–1527Related quotes
“The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire to receive even greater benefits.”
La reconnaissance de la plupart des hommes n'est qu'une secrète envie de recevoir de plus grands bienfaits.
Variant translation: Gratitude is the lively expectation of favours yet to come.
Maxim 298. Compare: "The gratitude of place-expectants is a lively sense of future favours", attributed to Sir Robert Walpole.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
Source: The Parables of Jesus: Sermons by Saint Gregory Palamas
Life-study of Numbers - p. 368, of Witness Lee - By Living Stream Ministry, ISBN 978-0-7363-0039-1
Letter to Joseph Huey (6 June 1753); published in Albert Henry Smyth, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, volume 3, p. 144.
Epistles
As quoted in Planet Savers : 301 Extraordinary Environmentalists (2008) by Kevin Desmond, p. 248
1990s
Book II, 2.40-[3]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book II
Context: Again, in our enterprises we present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each carried to its highest point, and both united in the same persons; although usually decision is the fruit of ignorance, hesitation of reflection. But the palm of courage will surely be adjudged most justly to those, who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger. In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favours.
Source: The Brass Bottle (1900), Chapter 4, “At Large”
